Illinois Registered Agent Service

An Illinois registered agent service accepts service of process and other legal notifications on behalf of Illinois businesses. When we accept legal documents and other official business mail on your behalf, we contact you immediately and upload those documents to your secure client account for you to view.

What is an Illinois Registered Agent?

An Illinois registered agent is appointed by a corporation or LLC to receive service of process and official notifications on behalf of that business. Illinois state law requires that every business entity designate an Illinois registered agent as a means of ensuring the state has a reliable way to contact every registered business. An Illinois registered agent must maintain a physical office within Illinois and keep regular business hours. An Illinois registered agent can be either an individual resident or another business entity.

Why Do I Need an Illinois Registered Agent?

Illinois corporations and LLCs are required by state law to appoint an Illinois registered agent.

Your business filing will be rejected by the Illinois Department of Business Services if you don’t appoint a registered agent in Illinois.

The Illinois’ registered agent requirement exists because the general public and the government need a reliable way to contact your business.

Why Your Life Will Be Better If You Hire Us:

You may struggle with your Illinois business filing. Illinois’ business registration filings can be difficult, but we do them every day. As part of our Illinois registered agent service, we’ll instantly provide you with filing instructions, tips, order sheets, and the forms you’d need to file any business with any state.

Call us! We’re here to help walk you through the Illinois Department of Business Services’ filing process. If you have a question, just call. The people who answer the phones aren’t reading from scripts or trying to upsell you—they’re just here to help start your Illinois business.

This is only the beginning. Illinois businesses require a lot of maintenance. When you form an LLC or corporation here, you’ll have ongoing reports due to the state, like the Illinois annual report (reports are due on the first day of your business’ anniversary date). These reports cost a minimum of $75 plus a $25 franchise tax. These reports can get especially confusing if you own a corporation. For this reason alone, you should hire a reliable registered agent service. With us, you’ll always know about upcoming report due dates for every state in which we’re your registered agent. Your corporate reminders are always based off your business’ real corporate data, the same data the state sees. If Illinois laws change and affect your business, you’ll know about it. We have the most sophisticated business compliance reminder system in our industry. Additionally, we provide you with not just a notice but the forms you need to maintain your business—already prepopulated with your information on them—all at no additional charge.

Free tools. We don’t just send you a bill for Illinois registered agent service. We offer all the legal forms you need to maintain your corporation, LLC, nonprofit, charity, LLP, or any other type of business form you could need. Through our Corporate Service Manager, you need only enter your information once, and use that data to populate all kinds of corporate forms like annual meetings, amendments, and new registrations in additional states.

What Makes Northwest Different From Other Registered Agents?

Big data. At Northwest, we know how to keep your personal information private. We don’t sell your data to others to make money. We don’t offer “big data” to others for a profit.We never store credit card information.

We are the only national registered agent that locally scans everything to you in real time. Your Illinois registered agent service is going to be your point of contact for any serious legal notices. We maintain our own registered offices in each state, and when you hire us for Illinois registered agent service we’ll scan everything to you from our office in Schaumburg, IL within minutes. And we don’t just email you a copy of your notice. Our Corporate Service Manager utilizes the most sophisticated calendaring response and tracking system of any Illinois registered agent service. Plus we make sure you and your lawyer or whoever you want to be notified actually look at the documents we upload for you.

Privacy. Choosing a registered agent is an important decision. If the general public or a government official wants to know who owns your company, your registered agent is who they’ll contact. We have strict privacy policies to keep your personal data private. Our trained staff will not give away your information, and our in-house data security professionals stress-test our systems regularly. Also, we prosecute those who try to hack our system.

Collections. We never send our clients to collections. If you don’t want to pay us, don’t. New clients sign up with us every day because they’re sick of their current registered agent’s billing policies. Our trademarked slogan is “We’re just not annoying.” This isn’t just a saying, they’re the words on which our business was founded.

This is all we do. When you hire us Northwest Registered Agent will be your registered agent in Illinois. Registered agent service is everything to us. Registered agent service isn’t a line item on a profit and loss sheet. It’s not a dividend payment to our owners. This isn’t an idea we hope will work out. And we certainly aren’t a massive corporate conglomerate with any army of salespeople looking for every penny of profit we can grab. This isn’t just a job to us.

What Do Illinois Registered Agents Do?

Accept legal documents and official mail on behalf of your Illinois business and deliver them to you as fast as possible.

Illinois registered agents need a physical address (no P.O. boxes) in the state of Illinois where they can accept legal documents (service of process) and official mail like tax notices. This location is called a registered office.

Maintain normal business hours.

What Are the Requirements for Illinois Registered Agents?

An IL registered agent must be a state resident or a company that provides registered agent services.

Accept legal documents (service of process) during normal business hours.

If a business’ registered agent is unable to be contacted, the Illinois Secretary of State will be served on the business’ behalf, and let’s face it, the Secretary of State is unlikely to be speedy about notifying your business.

The State of Illinois requires the registered agents whether your business is a limited liability company (LLC), C-corp, or S-corp.

Where is Northwest's Illinois Registered Office?

All of our Illinois clients’ documents are accepted and scanned on-site at our registered office in Schaumburg, IL.

How Do You Deliver My Documents to Me?

When we accept a document on behalf of your business we will scan the docs from our office in Schaumburg, IL within minutes to your online account. We created a registered agent infographic to illustrate our document delivery system.

Can I Have My Business Mail Delivered to Your Illinois Office?

That’s not what we do. We want to help if possible, but we don’t want all of your business’ mail.

If you don’t have a lease at our address, the postal service might not deliver your mail.

If we do receive any mail for you, though, we’ll scan it to you in real time, in minutes.

Can I Use Your Illinois Registered Office Address on Everything in My Business Filing?

Absolutely! We’re the only national registered agent service that allows our clients to list our address for everything on a filing to help keep your address private.

Will You Let Me Know When My Illinois Annual Report is Due?

Definitely! If you own an LLC or corporation in Illinois, you’ll need to file your IL annual report each year. As part of our registered agent service, we’ll not only send you a reminder, but we’ll give you the form you need to file and instructions on how to file it.

How Do Illinois Registered Agents Get Served?

Serving a registered agent is legal proof of notification. Whether you receive the documents your Illinois registered agent signs for or not, once they accept the documents, you’ve legally been notified. This is a serious responsibility and we don’t take it lightly. Here’s how it works:

A process server, the county sheriff, or any third party will walk into our Schaumburg office and hands us the documents (service of process), then we sign for them.

The process server then gives an affidavit (a receipt of service) to the court which states that they “served” us.

If you’ve hired us, long before the server hands in their affidavit to the court, you’ve received your documents because we scanned them to your online account within minute of having been served.

Do I Hire You Before or After I Form My Illinois Business?

You should hire us first and then form your LLC or corporation. The Secretary of State’s Corporations Division will reject your business registration filing if you don’t already have a registered agent service. You’ll find all the forms and instructions you need to complete your filing instantly after you place an order.

How Do I Get Started?

Place an order for Illinois registered agent service.

Access the forms you want to file.

Read our instructions and filing tips.

File your LLC or corporation filings with the Illinois Secretary of State.

If you don’t want to make the filing yourself, place an order in your online account to have us do it for you.

The Illinois Secretary of State will process your filing.

We’ll be your Illinois registered agent.

Illinois Registered Agent Service Includes:

Instant registered agent services annual price: $125.

Instant Illinois forms located directly in your online account to make a filing in Illinois.

State resources in your registered agent service account, with self-filing instructions to help you.

We send multiple annual report reminders, and you can also track your due dates in your online account.

We locally scan ‘service of process’ and all documents to you in real-time for no added cost.